CIL rebuts Greenpeace charge of overstating coal reserves

The reserves of Coal India Ltd are not going to get depleted in 17 years as alleged by environmental group Greenpeace, but would instead rise to 25 billion tonne in three years, CIL chairman Narsing Rao said on Tuesday.

Greenpeace had said on Monday that the public sector miner has only 18.2 billion tonne of extractable coal reserves, which is 16 per cent less than the 21.7 billion tonne the company claims on its website, and these could get over in 17 years (See: Coal India overestimating reserves, says Greenpeace).

The green group has even filed a complaint with the Securities & Exchange Board of India in this regard.

''Every year since 2011, we have been adding more than 2.2 billion tonne of coal reserves. So the reserve figure would come to 25 billion tonne in three years. This way we would continue adding more reserve as we keep developing new mines,'' Rao said.

Rao accepted that CIL hasn't disclosed to the stock exchange the change in the extractable reserve figure due to change in mode of calculation from ISP to UNFC code, saying such change wasn't material.

''We didn't consider it to be a significant development to be reported to the stock exchange,'' Rao said during a hurriedly called press conference to air CIL's displeasure over the Greenpeace report.

Rao termed the green activist's effort to highlight issues, which otherwise would have only bothered financial investors, as a ''sinister design''.

''All this (is being done) so that coal mines should be closed and we should only depend on imported coal. It is the only design that I can understand,'' Rao said.